Pink
by LithiumDoll
Summary: It may help if Dom considers it a rite of passage, but ... yeah, probably n


Dom's been shot at (okay, he's been shot near), he's been in a genuine knife fight (for the two seconds it took him to draw his gun), and he nearly fell off a roof once (he was ten and he doesn't like to talk about it. The cape may have been a mistake.)

The point is, he's known terror and, faced with the twin expressions of Hetty and Kensi, he knows it again. They look speculative, and just a little predatory. When they smile in perfect unison, he's pretty sure he can see teeth.

He holds the case files in front of him like the world's most badly thought out shield and he tries really hard not to look like prey. "Did you need me for something?" Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sam waving his arms and mouthing something that looks an awful lot like "Run!"

So that's encouraging.

Hetty taps a fingernail against her chin and says, "I think we'll start with the blue."

Kensi cants her head and looks him up and down. "Not the gray?"

"So bland!" Hetty holds a hand to her chest, stricken. "No, those who can wear bright colors absolutely should."

"But, blue? Everyone wears blue," Kensi says doubtfully. As one, the two women turn to look at the blue-shirted Callen. Callen steadfastly doesn't make eye contact and, if that means he's staring with unnatural interest at a pot plant, his body language seems to say, then so be it. Dom promises himself, next time it's a slow Friday and Kensi and Hetty have been whispering together over fruity tea and little French cookies? He will do exactly the same thing. He'll carry a pot plant with him, if he has to.

Well, only if he can't manage to develop a sudden case of something horrifying and just take the whole afternoon out sick.

With their interest briefly elsewhere, he starts to sidle around them. The corridor to Records is almost in sight and then Eric, somewhere above, calls out, "Where're you going, Dom?"

Eric has two arms; Dom can do something about that.

But not right now. Hetty's arm hooks companionably – and inescapably – around his; Kensi takes the other side: he's trapped. Trapped and planning to call Abby and ask how, exactly, to pull off the perfect murder.

"Okay, how about the red?"

"I think not," Hetty studies Dom pensively. "Certainly not at this time of the year, anyway. Perhaps pink?"

"No," Dom says reflexively, and then remembers both these women are the boss of him. "I mean … pink? Pink what?"

Hetty looks mystified. "What's wrong with pink?"

"Nothing," he says awkwardly. "As long as I'm not wearing it."

Her eyes widen understandingly, "I see – confidence in your own sexuality is, after all, something acquired with age. Experience."

Dom's not sure it could actually get worse without an apocalypse of some kind, but then she pats his arm.

He casts wildly about him for help – any help. He'll accept a man walking in with a gun, but there never is one of those when he really needs them.

Nate's watching in the background, but Nate won't help. Nate never helps. Except, you know, those times when he really helps. But Dom's sure this will not be one of them, not the way he's grinning.

Hetty begins to pull him towards wardrobe storage and, short of clinging onto a pillar like he's in a hurricane, he's not sure he can stop her. "How do you feel about yellow?" she asks as she rests a hand on his elbow and ushers him through the door. "Or orange? You know, we've received some of the most wonderful-"

The door shuts with a click and Callen risks looking away from the pot plant. It seems safe. Sam takes a seat beside him with the happy smile of a man who had not been seconded into Hetty and Kensi's seasonal fashion show.

This time.

Eric wanders up beside them, eyeing the door with a morbid kind of curiosity. "I could trip the fire alarm…"

"It's _illegal_ to pull a fire alarm without cause, Eric," Sam answers, with all due gravity.

"You think that's not cause? Poor kid. He was so young and innocent."

Callen snorts. "It'll be good for him. And it's a good sign – none of the other probies got volunteered to help with the new wardrobe."

They watch the closed door reflectively for a few moments before Sam says, "You think we should tell him that?"

"Or," Eric says slowly. "We could tell him his job hinges on wearing pink."


End file.
